


I think I know (I think I might know)

by lynnaround



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: And a Hug, Gen, cassandra needs a support system, many hugs, mental health issues abound, this is a character study disguised as a drabble tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 17:30:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18665062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynnaround/pseuds/lynnaround
Summary: Cassandra stands on the walls of Whitestone Castle and breathes in deep. The air is cold and sharp, usual for winter in Whitestone, but as she breathes in, the air feels clear andclean,which is something it hasn't been in a long time.A study of Cassandra a few weeks after the liberation of Whitestone, before Winter's Crest.





	I think I know (I think I might know)

**Author's Note:**

> this is cross-posted on my rp blog over on tumblr, at luxnosvocat. 
> 
> title taken from "What Makes a Man?" by City and Colour, which honestly gives me just so many "this relationship is broken and perhaps never will be whole again but we're going to try to line the broken pieces up anyways" Cassandra-and-Percy vibes.
> 
> this is also my first time posting here!! I hope you enjoy!!

Cassandra stands on the walls of Whitestone Castle and breathes in deep. The air is cold and sharp, usual for winter in Whitestone, but as she breathes in, the air feels clear and _clean_ , which is something it hasn't been in a long time.

(Not so long, the calculating part of her mind says. Five years is only a small part of a human lifespan, and in Whitestone's long history, it's an eyeblink, nothing more. Still, she sees that her hands are shaking and it feels, it feels like it's been a hundred years. She barely remembers six, seven, eight years ago.)

(Would she have survived five more years? Even as she asks herself that, Cassandra knows she would have. Would she have liked the Cassandra standing on the other end of that?)

(Well, given as she isn't particularly inclined to like herself as she is currently, probably not.)

Cassandra deliberately laces her fingers together and looks out towards the mountains, avoiding view of the city below. Her breath curls on the frozen air and all she can hear is the wind, that undulating rush that keeps biting her cheeks and ears. Her nose stings each time the cold rakes by, and she can feel stray strands of hair whipping about her head, having escaped from where she'd pulled it back. It's nice to know that no one will coax her back from the walls, nice to know that she can stay out as long as she wants. While her brother or one of his many eclectic friends will probably eventually look for her, Cassandra knows that they can't make her come down if she doesn't want to.

She stirs slightly in unease, pressing her lips hard into a tight line. They can't, right? At least not without physically hauling her back down. She feels twitchy all the time now, whenever she's given free rein of any sort, her instincts telling her the freedom they're offering is only going to get yanked back once she does what they want. Cassandra studies the Alabaster Sierras, and sees a golden eagle wheeling, a smudge against the grey winter sky. Supposedly there's nothing stopping her from leaving Whitestone anymore. She could just leave.

Except that she can't even bring herself to leave the castle on most days, and going down into the town is like a nightmare. She hasn't the strength to leave Whitestone, if she can't even manage to leave her room. (She tries. But there are days – and there are so many of them, it feels as if this entire week has been composed of hard days – where the truth of what she did during those five years will refuse to leave her, and Cassandra just cannot bring herself to do it, to step foot in that town that has every right to hate her. And after five years of never leaving the castle walls – well. There are days when simply opening the main doors is enough to send her huddled in the corner of one of her secret passageways, where she knows her brother and his friends cannot find her.)

Cassandra forces herself to take another deep breath, the motion detached and analytical, a mechanism born from five years of practice, and she straightens her gloves on her hands as she prepares to descend from the walls. The air seems to clear her lungs and steadies her somewhat, but a flash of blue catches her eye and she stops. Percy is standing at the bottom of the steps, and the muffled winter sun glints off the frame of his glasses as he looks up at her.

“Hi,” he says, and Cassandra locks her hands together. “We were wondering where you'd gotten off to.”

Cassandra steps down the stone stairs towards where he was standing on the lower ramparts, the door back into the warmth of the castle behind him, set into the watchtower. His cheeks are scraped slightly red from the cold, and when she looks up into his eyes, she looks away almost immediately, focusing instead on a spot just above his ear. There is guilt and shame and pain evident in his gaze, but there's also spots of hope and it's _that_ that always makes Cassandra feel as if she has to run, run to one of her dark passageways until her lungs stop constricting and the panic fades.

“Am I needed?” she says coolly, and Percy sighs and shakes his head, raking a hand through his hair. The motion rumples it hopelessly, and Cassandra looks back at Percy as he becomes the one to look away. She never wants to catalogue the changes in him but cannot help it anyways whenever she looks at him. He has changed, but yet there is too much that is still the same, and Cassandra feels a familiar shimmer of anger in her veins.

(He ran, he left her there, he escaped the Briarwoods and left her alone, even after she'd helped them escape. That resentment is familiar, but it scares and angers Cassandra in equal parts now, knowing that she had nearly killed her only remaining brother because of it. But there's new anger, too – he left and found a new family and lessened some of his burden, and now, even as he's returned, she hasn't really regained him, and never will. He's left her behind all over again and he will do so again in the future and Cassandra hates him for it, even as she tries to force herself not to feel that anger.)

“No, not for anything specific,” Percy says, and meets her gaze, and Cassandra does not let herself flinch. She does, after a moment, look down at the ramparts' stones, but Percy continues. “I was just – we wanted to check on you. To make sure you were okay.”

“Thank you,” Cassandra says unemotionally, squaring her shoulders and then looking levelly at him, and she _knows_ there's anger sparking in her eyes and yet there's a part of her that wants him to feel it. “I'm fine. I'll take care to inform you and your group of my whereabouts in the future.” Percy sighs again, but it's exasperated this time, as Cassandra turns to leave.

“Cassandra – ” Percy says, and Cassandra knows she could just keep walking but she stops, her back to him. She can hear a banner flapping on top of the watchtower, the fabric making cracking noises in the wind. He pauses, in the way that he always does when he's about to say something he considers important, and it's so much like _before_ that Cassandra feels as if the breath's been slapped out of her. “You don't have to tell us anything,” he says deliberately, and Cassandra swallows hard as she looks toward the watchtower door, towards where she might be able to flee. “I just – I care about you, all right, and I want to make sure you're okay. I know – I know you aren't. I don't think either of us will be okay for a long time, if ever. But I want to help you try. I owe that – at the very least – to you.” Percy's voice is careful and level, and Cassandra's hands open then close, as she tries to figure out what to do. She looks over her shoulder at him, and his white hair and blue coat are both fluttering slightly in the wind as he stands there, his gaze steady, blue eyes like hers trained on her face behind his spectacles.

Cassandra flicks her gaze downwards briefly, giving herself a moment to breathe, then looks back at him. She stays silent for a long moment, and Percy stills. “I know,” she finally says – all she can bring herself to say in that moment. She could square her shoulders and walk away, but she doesn't. Cassandra presses her chapped lips together and looks back towards the sky, where the sun is dim behind the grey haze of the winter clouds. Finally, she slowly offers Percy her hand – and he takes it, squeezing it gently. Cassandra's breath constricts slightly, but she turns her back and leads them both inside.


End file.
